I am trying desperately to keep up with school until we can take a Christmas break!
We only had four days of school this week. Someone needed to take a day off to bake cookies for the church cookie walk…I’m not really sure what happened this year, but there was no free evening to get all the cookies done! That day wasn’t a total loss, however…while I was baking, we watched through six different productions of the Nutcracker, including one new to our collection this year, and talked about the similarities and differences, and what we liked and disliked, about each. The San Francisco Ballet production continues to be the overwhelming family favorite!
Other than the one day off, we had a very full week of school. We learned about the history of Lutheranism in Germany and the U.S. in religion this week, and we also continued our Jesse Tree readings, and our church year commemorations. Two of my favorites took place this week…the days set aside to remember and thank God for Saint Nicholas and Saint Ambrose of Milan.
In math, Turkey and Bunny have been working on factoring polynomials. Ladybug has been calculating averages. Everyone was happy that, due to our day off on Wednesday, the math test was pushed back to next week!
Ladybug started a new chapter on fish in science this week. So far, she’s learned about gills and fins, and the different shapes of fish. Turkey and Bunny have almost finished their chapter on the hydrosphere, and will have a test next week. I’m happy that things will be wrapped up so neatly before our break!
We learned about Russia, Italy and Ethiopia, Korea, and the Spanish-American War in history. We have almost made it to 1900, and it’s very obvious at this point that WWI is looming on the horizon in Europe. I really enjoy studying the end of the Victorian era and the Edwardian era, so this is a good section of history for me! We also finished our study of the Constitution…hopefully that was the start of my students becoming good citizens!
Turkey and Bunny continued their literature study of Treasure Island. They finished up part three today, and were introduced to Ben Gunn. Ladybug is continuing to love her new study of D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, although, now that she and her older siblings have read all of the Rick Riordan books, they have occasional disagreements with the text about how things supposedly happened in Greek mythology! I had meant to also start reading aloud A Christmas Carol this week, as I do every year in December, but that was the one thing there wasn’t time for…I’ll just have to read longer sections next week!
One more week, plus a day to make up for our day off this week, until Christmas break. We should get to have some fun doing crafts in addition to our regular work next week!